New Board Won’t Fix Health NZ Without Funding Reset - Digital Services Must Be Prioritised

A new Health NZ Board cannot fix a broken system without a fundamental funding reset - starting with the gutted Digital Services group.

The PSA congratulates incoming Chair Mark Darrow and new Board members Michael Schubert and Dr Bryan Betty on their appointments to the Health New Zealand Board announced by Health Minister Simeon Brown today but warns that changing the Board will not be enough to address the deep problems created by years of Government-imposed cuts.

"At the end of the day, changing the Board won’t help unless the Government provides the increased funding the public health system urgently needs," said Fleur Fitzsimons, National Secretary for the Public Service Association Te Pukenga Here Tikanga Mahi.

"One priority must be digital services which a modern public health system relies on. Under this government hundreds of experienced digital experts have been lost, upgrades have stalled, and hospitals have been left with a legacy of IT outages that have forced clinicians onto whiteboards and paper forms. You can’t run a modern health system like that.

"The PSA is calling on the new Board to commission an urgent review of the impact of legacy IT systems across Health NZ - and to be transparent with the public about what it finds. New Zealanders deserve to know the true state of the systems their health care depends on.

"The health system is struggling and the new Board must take a fundamentally different approach to the workforce.

"We need a Board that respects the expertise of health professionals and ensures they have the support they need to do their job properly. That means listening to nurses, allied health workers, IT specialists, public health workers and administrators - the people who keep the health system running - rather than treating them as a cost to be cut.

"This is why we firmly believe it’s time to put worker representation on the Health NZ Board. Workers bring frontline knowledge and expertise that is too often missing from governance decisions. A health system that genuinely puts patients first starts with valuing the people who care for them."

"The PSA stands ready to work constructively with the new Chair and Board - but workers, patients and the public deserve to see real change, not just new faces around the table," Fitzsimons said.

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